Just to preface this everyone, I just passed my Technician test this past Sat and just got my callsign on Wednesday. Today was my first day on the air and it was a good experience for sure. I am using a freebie FT-60 that my father in law handed me as he doesn't use it so that's what I am using now. My dilemma is between the Yaesu 1900 and 2900. From what I've read on the Yaesu site the 2900 has a maybe one or two more features than the 1900 but my real decision is.... Is the 75w output of the 2900 really that significant over the 55w output of the 1900 as far as the benefits of output gain? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Its only a $20 diff but money is tight and I could put that towards a power supply so that I could use my mobile in a dual role of base as well.

The biggest advantage I could see to the higher-power radio is if you plan to talk a lot (i.e. have a high TX duty cycle). Then you could get the 75-watt radio and run it at 50-watts all day long without risking overheating (because the 75-watt radio is mostly one big heat sink).

But I usually run my mobile at 5 or 25w, instead of its max of 50, so even a radio rated at 50w (and run at 1/2 power) is sufficient for most uses.

The biggest advantage I could see to the higher-power radio is if you plan to talk a lot (i.e. have a high TX duty cycle). Then you could get the 75-watt radio and run it at 50-watts all day long without risking overheating (because the 75-watt radio is mostly one big heat sink).

But I usually run my mobile at 5 or 25w, instead of its max of 50, so even a radio rated at 50w (and run at 1/2 power) is sufficient for most uses.

Thank you. Yeah, that's the one thing I think is dumb about the FT-2900R. Max is 75w but the next step down isn't 50w but 25w, 20w, 5w. I don't know, I'm still up in the air about it. For only $20 more there are a few more features and I do like the fact that its a huge heat sink and the display is a little nicer. Arghhhh.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I will post again either in reply to comments or when I finally figure out what the heck I'm gunna get. Lol.

So I ended up goin with the FT-2900. I was going to go with the FT-1900 but I found a 2900 on ebay and won it for $112 plus shipping with less then 10hrs of use. We'll see how it goes. I'll update further once I get it and power it up.

I just took the test yesterday and passed, so I hopefully will be on the air this week. I don't know much about the Yaesu radios, but know they're pretty well made, so unless your QSOs are pretty long-winded from your end, duty cycles should not really be an issue. I have an old Kenwood TM-241 2m rig rated at 50 watts. Years ago where I lived, it ended up being used by our club for a long-term emergency operation and worked with long duty cycles without a hitch. The short story is, if one has reasonably good ventilation where the radio is located, then there should be no problem with long transmission cycles.

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